When the world cracked because of a sneer in heaven,
Leaving out for all time a scar upon the sky,
Thou didst rise up against the Horror in the highest,
Dragging down the highest that looked down on the Most High:

The part I really want to take a closer look at is this stanza on the incarnation. The wording, imagery and theological truth are profound. Here, take a read (remember: Michael is the “thou”):

When from the deeps of dying God astounded
Angels and devils who do all but die
Seeing Him fallen where thou couldst not follow,
Seeing Him mounted where thou couldst not fly,
Hand on the hilt, thou hast halted all thy legions
Waiting the Tetelestai and the acclaim,
Swords that salute Him dead and everlasting
God beyond God and greater than His Name.

OK. I recall when I was much younger I went to see a play put on at a local church. I believe it was my aunt’s church but that’s rather inconsequential. It was basically a nativity story but had a neat twist where the angels are all debating about how God is to come to Earth. Will he be a great magician? A mighty warrior? A fearless leader? A brilliant philosopher? No, he will be a babe. And of course the angels are astounded.

This stanza of Chesteron’s similarly echoes the wonder of of the inarnation. Not that He came as a little child, but that He came, and was able to come, at all. Angels and demons who are forever immortal gape with wonder at the everlastingly immortal God dying, and the whole world hushed for possibly the most beautiful word in the Greek language, or any language for that matter: tetelestai, it is finished.